


And In The End

by Anonymous6285



Series: *pride* [11]
Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - They Both Die at the End Fusion, Angst, Coming Out, Crying, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Not Happy, Sad Ending, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:54:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27520345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymous6285/pseuds/Anonymous6285
Summary: On the morning of the day you die, you get a phone call. One day, somebody gets one, and John isn't very happy about it.ORA Beatles fic based in the 'They Both Die At The End' universe
Relationships: John Lennon/Stuart Sutcliffe
Series: *pride* [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967863
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	And In The End

**Author's Note:**

> I'm like halfway through the book, and I couldn't resist writing something about it because the concept is so intriguing.

John stared right in the eyes of Stuart, pure rage coursing through his veins. He was lucky there was a table separating them in the over crowded club or he would’ve already tackled the other boy to the ground at what he’d said.

He had completely blackmailed John, claiming he would tell Astrid everything and already having his phone out, ready to call her. John was holding tight onto his wrist, deathly afraid of what would happen if their secret got out.

“John, I-I’ve got to tell her. She’s my best friend--”

“I don’t care! This isn’t yours to tell, Stu! It’s ours, and I’m not ready for that.” Silence followed for the next few seconds as John carefully let go of Stuart’s arm, keeping an eye on what he did with his phone. 

“It’s just Astrid, John. It’s not like I’m telling everyone! You know she won’t mind!”

“I know, but… look, you can tell her you’re gay if it’s really that important to you, but don’t you think you could wait to tell her about us until I’m ready for it?”

“I really do understand what you’re saying, love, but please. You’ve got to believe me. I just… I have to.” John shook his head firmly.

“You’re absolutely ridiculous. I don’t see why you’re so impatient!” Stuart shifted in his seat, sneaking his phone in his pocket. When he started to get up, John freaked out. “Where the fuck are you going??”

Stuart considered his options here. He could tell John he was just going home. But that definitely wouldn’t go over well with him. He wouldn’t be able to leave the table. Instead, he mumbled a weak, “gotta take a leak,” and he started to speed walk away from the table.

John wanted to trust him, he really wanted to be able to leave him to go piss by himself, but he was too jumpy after the conversation they’d just had.

After Stuart was gone a few minutes, he got up and followed him, pushing open the door to the toilet to find that his boyfriend wasn’t at the urinals or the sinks, where he expected him to be. He had either completely left the restaurant, or--

“Y-yes,” he heard, Stuart’s voice. “Y-y-yeah, John and I are--” He paused to let out a breath. “I-I know it sounds like a lot, but it’s… it’s been a while, and I just thought you should know. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, and it would mean a lot if…” John was frozen as Stu let out a sigh of relief. Astrid must have said something good on the other end of the phone. “Thank you. A-and John said he really doesn’t want you to know, but I promised him you wouldn’t tell anyone else.” At least he was taking into consideration John’s wishes.

But the feeling didn’t last as his anger swallowed him up, and he banged on the stall door where Stuart was hiding. “Hey! You son of a bitch, open the door!”

“N-no, it’s fine. Everything’s fine. I’ll call you back, okay?” John heard the sound of the phone hanging up, and he slammed his fist into the door again.

“Stuart, what the fuck! I told you--!”

“Just shut up a second, okay?” he said calmly. “I’ll open this door, but I need to tell you something first--” This time, John slammed his body into it, causing pain to run through his side. He didn’t know why he was doing this, but he couldn’t stop whatever it was inside of him that was making him.

“John, stop it! Just listen to me!!” The door was slammed again, and this time, the lock completely broke off and clattered to the floor loudly. When the stall door swung open, Stuart threw himself into the wall and covered his head, but as John hurled towards him, he didn’t notice how scared he looked.

“Are you fucking serious?!” he shouted, already having Stuart pinned beneath him. “I told you I didn’t want her to-- fuck! God, what have you done?? What if she tells somebody?!”

“She won’t,” Stu insisted, though not very loudly. He didn’t dare try to slip his way out of John’s arms right now. John would surely beat him for it, so he just tried to regulate his breathing. He checked his watch. It was nearly 1:30 in the morning, and he really didn’t like being stuck here.

“Why did you do that! You could have just waited until--”

“Until you were ready, I know. But to be completely honest, I’m done waiting for a selfish prick. You don’t even think about me! It’s always ‘how would this affect John? How would this change John’s social status? Would this make John look bad?’ I’m tired of it! I wanted to tell her about me!”

“About us,” John corrected. “You call me a selfish prick? Look at yourself! If I wanted to tell Paul about us, I would’ve made sure you were okay with that! Telling people about things like that isn’t something you just go around and do, Stuart!”

For a second, Stuart was trying to think of another excuse, but as his mind went blank, all he muttered was, “You’re a fucking arsehole.” And that was the wrong thing to say, because after just a second, he felt John’s fist come down on his nose, and the pain shocked him enough that he didn’t even try to get away from the next few blows.

“I hate you, Stuart! I can’t believe I ever fell for you! All you ever cared about was yourself!” A ringing phone interrupted them, and John looked over at the water box on the loo, where Stuart had left his phone. The screen said ‘Incoming Call: Astrid K.’ 

“John, I’ve got to answer it,” Stuart mumbled shyly. His face hurt so bad, so he didn’t want to do anything to provoke any more violence from the boy.

“I’m not letting you tell any more secrets. You disgust me.” He smacked him in the face again. “I’m through with you, you hear? I’m not wasting any more of my life on you! Now you can tell that to your stupid girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend!” Stuart shouted. “She’s my friend, John. And if you knew why I told her, you wouldn’t--”

“Why would there be any good reason to out me to somebody without my permission. Not even just without my permission, but against my wishes. There is nothing that could make me tell Paul that you were gay if you didn’t want me to--”

“Unless you were fucking dying!” John pulled off of Stuart, blinking. “I bet you wouldn’t have cared what I said if you were dying and you wanted your best friend to know about who you really are.”

John didn’t argue. Stuart was right. He would’ve told Paul everything. But it took him a few more seconds to realise what Stuart was implying.

“I may be a selfish prick, but you would be, too! And that makes us even,” he whispered. 

“Stu… please tell me this is all some kind of joke.” He couldn’t lose Stuart. There was no way he’d be able to live with that. 

“I wish it was,” Stuart replied, voice wavering, and he started to cry, John knew that he was telling the truth. Stuart never cried, and he couldn’t act for shit.

“Holy shit, I-I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Why didn’t you…” He was trying his very best not to break down right now, and if he kept talking like this, there was no way he could avoid it. “Why didn’t you fucking tell me!” He was once again angry. “You let me beat you like that! I could’ve killed you! God, look at your face. We’ve got to get you to a hospital…”

“Hospital’s not gonna do me any good, John. They won’t take me if they know I’m supposed to die.”

“We won’t tell ‘em, then. Maybe if you stay in the hospital all day, you’ll be able to beat this, yeah? Let’s go ahead and go, and--”

“Johnny, stop it. I don’t want my last day to go like this. I don’t want you to be sad about it, trying to stop it. It’s going to happen, and I want it to be a happy day.” John stared at him, his mask of hope starting to crack. Shaky sobs started to leave his mouth, and he hugged his arms around himself.

“I want to hug you, but I’m afraid I’m going to break you. I don’t want to be the reason you don’t get to see tomorrow…”

Stuart sighed through his nose as he pulled John in closer to him. And then his phone rang again. He glanced over at it, expecting to see that Astrid was calling again, but instead, he read, ‘Incoming Call: Paul M.’ What was Paul doing up at this time?

Concerned, he picked up and put it on speaker phone, but both of them were too rattled to let him know.

“Hello?” came Paul’s voice, and Stuart hummed in response. “Stu, is that you?”

“Y-yeah, Paul, it’s me. What’s up?” It got quiet for a while, as if Paul had muted his end. And then the sound came back on, and they both heard small sniffles. “You okay?”

“I-I’m really sorry, but I can’t go into London with you this weekend.” Stuart had completely forgotten about that in all of his panic. He and Paul were supposed to leave this afternoon and spend the weekend in London together, but now there was no way he could. “Stuart?”

“Yeah, it’s… it’s fine.”

“I just wanted you to know. I don’t want you to be too upset. I… I got the call this morning. About an hour ago, actually, and I don’t know what to do.” John’s heart dropped. Not Paul, too.

“Oh, god…” Stuart mumbled. John saw that he was finally becoming a little bit sad. “Oh, my god.”

“I-I’ve got to go now. I wanted to tell John before it’s too late.”

Right when Paul was about to hang up, John said, “wait, Macca. M’right here…” Paul started to cry again over the speaker, but this time, he didn’t mute it.

“John, w-w-what are you doing with Stuart? Where are you guys?”

They looked at each other. Surely, it would only confuse Paul more if they told him they were out at a gay bar together, but right now, that seemed like the least of their worries. 

“We’re out together,” John said. “J-just stay at your house, okay? I’m coming to you, yeah?”

“O-okay…”

“Do you want to stay on the phone?”

“I’ve gotta call George. But I’ll text you right after so you know I’m not dead yet,” he joked, but none of them said anything. “O-okay. I’ll see you soon, John. You too, Stuart.” The phone hung up, and John looked over at Stuart.

“Do you want to go over to Paul’s?” he asked. Obviously, it’d be best for Stuart to make the decision. It was his life they were putting at risk.

“I’d rather do that than stay here and die in some gross bar.” John nodded. 

“Let’s get going, then.”

-

Paul was sitting on the couch with Mike and his father on either side of him when the doorbell rang. Jim jumped up and ran towards it, opening it carefully to see Paul’s friends standing on the doorstep. Stuart’s bloodied face didn’t even register in the panic he was already in.

“Come on in,” he muttered, and they both stepped inside. Paul didn’t get up from the couch until the door was closed, and he ran to hug them.

“I’m so sorry,” John muttered as he felt Paul’s arms around him for one of the last times ever. “God, I can’t believe this is real…”

“You can’t?” Paul said. “I’m the one that’s going to die! Not you!” He looked over at Stuart with a small smile. “I’m sorry I can’t go to London with you. Maybe you can find someone else to go with.”

Then, they heard a sneeze from the other room. They didn’t think anybody else was here. Paul’s entire family was in the living room. “Bless you,” came the voice of George.

And then Astrid said, “thanks.”

The two of them came into the room with some plates of food, and Astrid stopped as soon as she saw them and the blood streaked down Stuart’s face.

“Did John do that to you?” she asked. “You told me everything was fine--”

“It is fine,” Stuart assured her. “It was just a misunderstanding. Nothing to worry about.” John and Stuart both knew how much he was lying, but neither of them said anything about it. They were at Paul’s house, so taking anything from him would be rude.

“If you’re sure,” she replied hesitantly and brought the plates of food in her hands over to the table by the couch. 

-

It was a very awkward time. For a while, they all sat on the couch, not saying much. And if they did, it was small conversation. Until Stuart got up to go to the toilet, and as he stood up, he started to cry.

In seconds, Astrid was next to him, helping him back down onto the couch and rubbing his shoulder. “Stu, it’s okay…” And her soft words assuring him made him even more upset. Because after today, not only was she not going to have Paul. She wasn’t going to have him, either, and he thought she deserved to know that.

John could also see that his upset wasn’t only because of Paul, and how much could it possibly hurt for him to just tell her. It was better than her finding out when he’d actually died.

“Stu got the call, too, Astrid,” he said quietly, and Astrid looked right at Stuart’s eyes until he glanced over at her with them.

“Oh, god… oh, no. God, please no.” She sniffled and hugged him.

“That’s why he told you about us,” John admitted, looking over at Paul. “M-Macca, erm… Stu and I are together. I just… I’d never even thought about telling you, but now… now, I’m about to lose both of you, and I don’t see the point in keeping it just for myself.”

Stuart’s face was so red from everything that he laid it down on Astrid’s shoulder to hide it. And George was in shock. 

“How long?” Astrid asked, and John sighed. 

“It’s been a couple of years.” A few gasps came from around the room.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Paul asked. “Oh, god, John… you didn’t have to keep that from me. I wasn’t gonna-- shit, and I’m gonna die.”

“Is there any way we can--?”

“There’s nothing you can do,” Stuart said sadly, lifting his head. “It’s got to happen. We all know that, so there’s no point in trying to deny it.” The harsh words hung in the air for too long, and John felt an arm wrap around him. He turned to see that Paul had moved to sit in between him and George and was holding them both up to him.

“I love you guys. I never said it like that, but I do.” John saw that even George was crying now, too. George, who always did his best to convince them all that he was no baby. “I don’t want to go.”

For the first time that day, John felt the tears in his eyes so hard that they were burning his eyes. And as he looked around the room, there wasn’t a single person who didn’t feel like that, either. He gave up on trying to hold them back and sobbed into Paul’s shoulder.

“I don’t want you to go, either…”


End file.
